{"id":493,"date":"2024-01-20T12:09:52","date_gmt":"2024-01-20T18:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/?p=493"},"modified":"2024-08-17T16:11:34","modified_gmt":"2024-08-17T21:11:34","slug":"i-want-to-walk-as-a-child-of-the-light-i-want-to-follow-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/2024\/01\/20\/i-want-to-walk-as-a-child-of-the-light-i-want-to-follow-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"I Want to Walk As a Child of the Light&#8230;I Want to Follow Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"140\" height=\"204\" class=\"wp-image-41\" style=\"float:left;margin-right:10px;width: 140px;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/JackiBelile-cropped.jpg\" alt=\"The Rev. Jacki Belile\"><em>Those are the opening lines of a hymn in our hymnal we&#8217;ve not sung in my memory of recent years, though its inviting tune seems familiar.&nbsp; TAKE A LISTEN&nbsp; AT THIS&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/eddenuccchicago.us15.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=21fd656331be5658fdce9eaf3&amp;id=34d976f94e&amp;e=4ad300ec03\">LINK.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks to Isaac Rhea, who will be accompanying us Sunday, for calling this lovely piece to my attention so we can share it this week. Perfect for the themes we&#8217;re meditating on this month, it also takes me to these places:<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\" start=\"1\">\n<li>What does it mean, really, to follow Jesus in our divided and challenging day? What does that mean to you?&nbsp; For me, I&#8217;m grappling daily and in more explicit ways than ever on the question of what that has to do with who I am as a citizen.&nbsp; I just starting a wonderful little book called&nbsp;<em>What is God&#8217;s Kingdom and What Does Citizenship Look Like&nbsp;<\/em>by C\u00e9sar Garc\u00eda.&nbsp; I&#8217;ll keep you posted, but I think this little booklet could really frame some interesting conversations this Lent.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Then there&#8217;s the poetic image of being called to be children of light. Wow.&nbsp; I&#8217;m holding this as I work on&nbsp;this Sunday&#8217;s&nbsp;service at Eden and with Floyd Rueger, Pastor Noemi Meza, and Gwynne Carlson on the&nbsp;January 28<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;Ecumenical Service &#8220;Strangers No More&#8221; at Trinity Lutheran.&nbsp; These two&nbsp; gatherings&nbsp;fall within the days observed by Christians around the world as the &#8220;Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.&#8221;&nbsp; Oh, that we would receive the light, perceive the light, allow all the Light necessary (as President Obama said&nbsp; &#8211;&#8220;more light than heat&#8221;) in order to&nbsp; be instruments of peace in these times of disunity.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>For the sake of our meditation, here are two more contemporary resources:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/eddenuccchicago.us15.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=21fd656331be5658fdce9eaf3&amp;id=56dbdbff91&amp;e=4ad300ec03\">&#8220;Let There Be Light&#8221; &#8211; Steph Macleod &amp; Becky Dawson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/eddenuccchicago.us15.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=21fd656331be5658fdce9eaf3&amp;id=9a868d340c&amp;e=4ad300ec03\">Our Deepest Fear &#8211; Marianne Williamson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let us journey on&#8230; followers and bearers of Light!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Christ&#8217;s Peace,<br>Pastor Jacki<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Those are the opening lines of a hymn in our hymnal we&#8217;ve not sung in my memory of recent years, though its inviting tune seems familiar.&nbsp; TAKE A LISTEN&nbsp; AT THIS&nbsp;LINK. Thanks to Isaac Rhea, who will be accompanying us Sunday, for calling this lovely piece to my attention so we can share it this<span class=\"post-excerpt-end\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/2024\/01\/20\/i-want-to-walk-as-a-child-of-the-light-i-want-to-follow-jesus\/\" class=\"themebutton\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":509,"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions\/509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}